Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Why is it called a dashboard?

What we know as dashboards, not the one on your computer, in cars- are evolved from the early dashes in horse carriages and buggys. The dash board was the boards or material dropcloth that kept the horses back feet from splashing mud and muck onto the driver and carriage... the carriages became motorized and the dashboards were the best place for the first gauges, so the dashboards became the instrument panels

3 comments:

Thanks for clearing this up...When the automobile was in its infancy and most were carriages with an engine it WAS a dashboard. As in the "Curved Dash Oldsmobile" . It came from preventing the result of the horse "Dashing" through snow or mud. "Traction Avant!"Automotive designers and engineers today refer to it as an "instrument panel" and the information center in front of the driver as the "instrument cluster".

Thanks for the motivation. I opened the blog and aired it out. Whew! Did it need it. There is a post up and I left a light on. Welcome back. This is all way too much fun to keep it pent up. Thanks again.